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Guest post written by Brett Caine

Brett Caine is senior vice president and general manager for the Citrix Online Services division.

Brett Caine

So much has been said and written about being social – we tweet, we pin, we like. We have become a society that communicates and shares just about everything we do, with one notable exception - work. Work is the place where social firewalls go up when they really should come down. After all, our teams are about teamwork. Social is the perfect tool to get our teams to work more collaboratively.

And as it catches on, productivity is improving – people can work and play from anywhere and (finally) debunking the notion that workers need to be in an office to produce. The number of work-at-home employees is increasing dramatically and not just day-extenders. For the first time we are seeing companies implement work-at-home policies and practices that make it possible to work from home as a full member of the team. Everyone wants flexibility, more and more ask for it and the millennials will demand it. What does this changing workforce (and workplace) mean for leaders and managers in the workplace?

In full openness, I work for a company whose business, in part, is to help other businesses collaborate socially. We also use the tools ourselves. In embracing these trends, our company has delivered extremely high employee engagement scores over the past few years – increasing each year despite the challenges and complexities of an ever increasing distributed and global workforce.

With these trends as the backdrop, I predict that in 2013, we’ll start seeing some distinct changes in the workplace – changes that mark a leap forward in the “social” work revolution.

Here are five areas where the changes will take place – areas that all managers and employees need to be ready to address.

Email evolves into obscurity

Email is not the right tool for office communications. It’s been default as the best way to do it for too long. It’s broken and it (we) can’t keep up in a fast paced, continuous adaption of teams in the workforce.

Email was never intended to be used as a collaboration tool. It slows us down, kills productivity and leaves critical information in silos rather than being shared. This argument was made profoundly by a recent study, which found that the average worker spends nearly a third of his or her work week managing email and nearly 20 percent of his or her time looking for internal information and/or tracking down colleagues who can help with specific tasks. Leaders of major companies are shutting down internal email – simply to improve communication and get more work done.

In 2013, we will see a shift in how emails are used in the workplace. Increasingly, emails will evolve into notifications that will signal to readers that something is happening somewhere else – e.g., a brainstorming call at 2 p.m. The content and reference materials will be in the cloud and continuously updated, synchronized and easily available from anywhere.

Social collaboration becomes invisible

With more and more businesses turning to the cloud for effective collaboration solutions, the social enterprise isn’t the latest idea for companies. Microsoft, Salesforce and IBM proved that with major acquisitions of social networking companies for enterprises. When multiple, large industry players enter a space, it’s the beginning of a major trend and unlikely to fade away. In my view, the trend will become so common, social becomes the frame for collaboration in the future.

If you really want to social enable your company, figure out how to actually get to “work” with social collaboration instead of just talking about it. This will be the tipping point for users and companies to get the benefit in 2013 and beyond.

Needs for collaboration increase as we get better at preparing for unlikely events

Unfortunately, natural and man-made disasters are likely to increase in the years ahead. Companies therefore are updating their crisis management plans. As part of that preparation, it makes perfect sense for companies to invest in social collaboration tools that allow them to maintain business under any circumstances. Increasingly, companies and employee commutes and routines are getting disrupted by storms, transit strikes, outages and fires to name a few. In 2013, get ahead of this and invest in both tools and policies to enable work from anywhere business models. Certainly, social collaboration tools, remote access and support for employees regardless of location are smart steps to take to prepare your business to stay open even when the most unlikely events occur.

Your personal cloud will have a single access point

As businesses move to the cloud, this will also be the year where you will start seeing one point of access to your data regardless of where it’s stored. You will no longer have to login and check five, six or even seven different storage repositories for the information you need for work. One app will connect you with all your social channels – personal, professional, you name it. That ease-of-use is going to drive adoption in droves.

Casual Fridays will become Work-from-Home Fridays

The tablet generation has already redefined the workplace. This on-the-go generation is not defined by four walls and a desktop computer. They are mobile. Mobile is the new normal. It’s not the exception. We will see more small- and medium sized companies take this generation into consideration and consider virtual offices and workshifting to incentivize their employees.

With rising gas prices and the high costs of commercial real estate, it makes financial sense for SMBs in particular to consider alternatives to traditional corporate headquarters and hubs. Office-sharing in some regions has become quite popular, particularly among start-ups. In return, we will have a more dynamic workforce and work environment instead of the same old stagnant cube nation.

The future is indeed bright for going social in the workplace. It’s great to see work catch up to everyday life. It’s something we can all like.